business
Many of us know firsthand that the knowledge
economy values how well we use our minds more
than how many things we make each hour. It’s
ideas we need. Invention. Innovation. Creativ-
ity. That’s the fuel of our rapidly chang ing global
economy, yet the work world still largely operates
on old notions of productivity: work faster, think
faster, and use as many tech tools as you can to
increase your efficiency. People skills, even in this
age of “emotional intelligence,” are more expected
than cultivated. A nd the idea that the workplace
could (and should) be a place where people flourish
and develop sets heads nodding in ag reement, but
are we really making that happen?
After teaching executives in MBA programs
about mindfulness for over a decade, I’m convinced
that productive huma n action is about much more
than getting stuff done. My students and I have tried
to explore the underlying drivers of real productiv-
ity, which go way beyond better, faster information
technology. It seems to us now that beyond cloud
computers and brilliant smartphones, the secret to
productivity lies within and between us. It’s about
a calmer, more open and undistracted mind, greater
self-awareness, and an enhanced capacity for self-
transformation—not to mention disciplined passions
and stronger human relationships.
This isn’t exactly a new idea. Long before it be-
came a topic at sold-out Silicon Valley conferences,
mindfulness was identified as a business need. It
just didn’t go by that name. The preeminent man-
agement guru Peter Drucker struck on mindfulness
principles early in his career, and he put it this way
in his 1968 book The Age of Discontinuity: “Trained
perception and disciplined emotion are as pertinent
to the ability to earn a livelihood as they are to the
mature human personality.” He believed that people
who are able to see clearly gain an advantage over
those unable to step out of outworn, habitual ways
of perceiving—especially when faced with chaos.
Before they can manage anything, Drucker argued,
“ma nagers must learn to manage themselves.”
Nevertheless, managerial and leadership educa-
tion is still la rgely focused on the external, rational,
and technical, while the myriad shifts and pressures
of the 21st-century work world seem to cry out for
a more rounded approach. Cultivating the percep-
tual, emotional, and interpersonal aspects of human
beings—all key elements of mindfulness practice—
strengthens capacities we need to live a nd work
effectively. And far from being an exotic Asian im-
port grafting itself onto the Western mindset, mind-
fulness fills a long-felt but little-understood gap in
the education of executives and entrepreneurs.
What results when people practice mindful-
ness in cubicles and boardrooms? What happens,
for example, if enhanced awareness causes them
to question the very organizational culture they
commute to each day? Is mindfulness at work
actually transformative or merely palliative? Could
newfound awareness cause some employees to
chuck it all?
To search for answers beyond what I could find
in my own backyard, I talked with some of those
who are blazing this trail to a new way of building
and doing business. Admittedly, as someone who
teaches mindfulness to businesspeople, I have my
biases, but if mindfulness means anything, it means
examining our underlying assumptions and what
we’re doing as we’re doing it. I want to do just that,
and encourage others to do so as well. The very act
of bringing mindfulness to business requires us
to keep asking the question: Is mindfulness good
for business?
Beyond outside-the-box thinking
Can a 99¢ cake mix catalyze profound personal
transformation? It can if you’re Janice Marturano.
The once in-house attorney who steered General
Mills’ complex acquisition of rival Pillsbury found
herself pushed past burnout when the three-month
negotiation stretched into a brutal 18-month
process. Deciding the fate of, among other things,
boxed cake mixes meant that 10,000 jobs were on
the line. Facing enormous pressure—her govern-
ment counterpart had a nervous breakdown—
Marturano also dealt with the death of both her
parents during that time.
When the deal was finished, a depleted Mar-
turano repaired to a leadership retreat led by Jon
Kabat-Zinn, creator of the Mindfulness-Based
Stress Reduction Program at the University of
Massachusetts Medical Center and founder of the
renowned Center for Mindfulness in Worcester,
Massachusetts. The weeklong experience of resting,
replenishing her streng th, and cultivating g reater →
OVERHEARD AT THE OFFICE
“The biggest impact has been on my
ability to quiet my mind. It’s allowed
me to increase my focus when my
team is presenting ideas to me.”
Joe Ens, VP, marketing,
General Mills
54 mindful April 2013